USING "STAR" DEFENDERS AS OPPOSITION IN TRAINING ACTIVITIES

                                          

The more bridges you can find to connect training idea's the better for your players ability to learn, retain and consolidate whatever tactic/strategies you're trying to implement on game day.

Usually it's the designated play against no one like cone to cone drills that have players run through the perfect example of that play over and over again, of which will happen probably once during the season if you're lucky!

Then we usually go directly to game conditions where the play breaks down as we haven't trained this play against opposition yet and players are unable to adapt the movements of them and the ball around all the constraints that games entail.

Sometimes we add a defender or 2 into the mix but it's usually skewed too far to the offensive bias and it's doesn't provide enough game representation to really carry over to actual games, it simply makes us feel like we're making progress when we're probably not.

Here's what I think is a better middle ground option - what I've coined star defenders (I know, it sounds like an 80's Saturday morning cartoon!!).

Check out the video below...

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WHY WE NEED MORE FEMALE HEAD COACHES IN FOOTBALL

                                                   

With the introduction of the Women's Coach Accelerating Program via the AFL in the middle of 2022, there is finally a real and transparent pathway for female coaches into the  AFLW and hopefully, AFL ranks. 

I watched a coaching seminar from St Kilda's season 1 AFLW Coach Pete Searle a few years ago and she mentioned some thing that has stuck with me ever since - the male leadership model is built on a hierarchy of judging yourself and others based on where they sit which within that hierarchy which is an ego-based leadership system, but female leadership is about developing lots of friends, connections and networking but without no hierarchy there are no ego's as everyone is treated as though they are on the same level.

What it comes down is that there is a very-real male "way" of coaching that has ingrained itself in all footy leagues and clubs and the 18% female head coaching % of the AFLW is probably similar in all the local women's leagues around Australia which, if it isn't already, will have huge implications on participation rates which is what sport at all ages is all about, if that % doesn't increase. 

This study comes provides reasons for adding how female head coaches can improve the culture of your club/team and how you can go about welcoming them.

• Coaches’ behaviors and interactions with the athletes they coach are affected by their own, and their athlete's individual differences in characteristics, including gender
• The abundance of males in coaching and the masculine norms it brings can have an impact on the prevalence of certain coaching behaviors in that space
• Are male coaching practice’s conducive to women's sporting experiences?
• Coaches who adopt controlling behaviors such as intimidation, tangible rewards and controlling feedback have the potential to thwart athlete's feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness, which leads to burn/drop out and further issues such as depression and disordered eating (search Google for the recent article on the Matilda's dealing with this.)
• Attitudes and beliefs were the strongest predictors of coaching behaviors relative to concussion safety and found that difference in attitude/beliefs were patterned by the sex of the coach and the sex of the team being coached
• These differences led to gender based differential behavior in communication behavior regarding concussion
• Female coaches are less likely to express respect for athlete's playing hurt and less likely to make them feel guilty about missing games
• Male coaches engage significantly more frequently in trying to keep control and general technical instruction and significantly less in general encouragement than female coaches
• Female athlete's perceive male coaching behaviors as a more masculine style of communication and interaction via screaming and rough language whereas females exhibited more understanding and caring language
• Female coaches score higher on the social support sub-scale than male coaches
• Safety is paramount to creating a positive experience by behaving in ways that promote safety and injury prevention but it is at odds with popular heroic narratives that normalise and celebrate playing hurt
• You want players to be after mastery (self improvement, effort, task mastery, cooperative learning, having fun) but by force of habit they adopt to an ego-driven environment (playing to win, awards, punishments, preferable treatment of better players) which is associated with negative participation outcomes via anxiety, low intrinsic motivation, lowered enjoyment and sport attrition (junior football in a sentence!)
• Autonomy supported coaching draws on the principles of the self determination theory which examines determinants (sociocontextual factors) of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and its impact on athlete outcomes
• Your coaching needs to provide fun, above everything else
• 46% of all coaches (in the study) were volunteers and only 31% of those were women
• 67% of females had paid positions v males 43% (read on to find out why)
• Females are also largely absent from coaching our youngest athletes (6 – 10yrs old)
• 50% of female coaches had children v males 77%
• Volunteer coaches are usually male and team administrators and the like are usually females, leaving the status quo and the path for females for coaching continually challenging
• Paid positions may help females get into the male-dominated coaching domain as it can help them mitigate the constraints of females in coaching
• When women do coach, they bring behaviors supportive of autonomy-supportive coaching and safety
• They less often communicate the need to be tough
• Their coaching behaviors are generally oriented towards facilitating positive youth experiences and communal behaviors
• Female coaches may help steer the youth sports culture away from the usual masculine ethos of sport leadership and organisational structures, especially if they can be valued for their different skill set at club level
• The difference between male and female coaching is actually a barrier of entry for female coaches, who if possessing these traits, aren't really encouraged or allowed to use them
• Female coaches can also experience disapproval for coaching "like" a male or a female, being perceived as competent when displaying masculine leadership behaviors, or likable when displaying feminine relational behaviors, but are rarely accepted when displaying both
• If female coaches find their behaviors aren't compatible with the current masculine structure, they will often opt out of coaching, tamper down their behaviors to avoid coaching against the grain or simply conform to the prevailing structure
• Adherence to a masculine-only structure can be detrimental to young athlete's development of a balanced understanding of leadership and then youth sports simply becomes a space for the reproduction, not disruption, of gendered notions of gender, power and leadership
• Female coaches serve as positive role models for younger females and provides great gender representation
• For youth sport to fulfill its potential, female head coaching numbers need to reach the same levels as male head coaches
• Clubs should directly ask women to coach and offer options for co-coaching if need be (AFL Accelerated Program)
• When aiming to recruit mother’s into coaching, do so by advertising for female coaching traits from above so they can immediately identify and align with the position immediately and give them confidence that they will be free to coach in the way they prefer to without interference

HOW DO COLLINGWOOD TRAIN TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN?

I have posted numerous scenarios and training activities pertaining to applying pressure by coming hard at the ball carrier and it is a major defensive ploy employed AFL teams like Richmond, Sydney and Collingwood.

Damian Hardwick once said "if you're going to make a mistake defensively, make it coming forward."

Having a quick watch of some of the Collingwood/Carlton practice game this very scenario presented itself and it just so happens there are 4 different training activities that Collingwood used in this past pre-season to focus on this.

By pressing forward at the ball carrier you can interrupt their decision making process compared to running back to goal with them and giving them all the time in the world to decide what to do and when.   

It's hard to make sound decisions when you're having your time and space taken away from you.

If you'd like your team to be able to defend fast play offensive transition game moments like the Pies do in this clip, then you better grab a copy of the Collingwood Training Activities and go straight to activities 8, 12, 20 and 22.  

TEAM-BASED OFFENSIVE TACTICS

                                         

After yesterdays look at the defensive side of the game, let's dive into the offensive side today.

Once again we're after 2 - 3 game moments that all players can understand, and refer to, during games when we are in possession of the ball/on offense.

There's plenty to choose from and you might choose to decide on others but to create the framework for you to work off I'll go with...

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TEAM-BASED DEFENSIVE TACTICS

                                                               

Within a single local footy team you'll have a huge range of abilities and experience which in turn results in various levels of output on game day.

This can, and does, leave performance gaps from player to player in the way affordances are perceived and acted upon.

The focus of team success is usually built around individual improvement but the last time I looked, Aussie Rules has 18 players on the ground at a time,meaning will garner far more improvement in team performance by training team tactics.

Good decisions come from good positions so if everyone knows where they should be positioned and what their role is at at all times of the game, then at the very least you're giving yourself a very good chance to control the game which usually leads to success. 

I don't care what level of footy you're playing in, it's easier with 18 players then 10.

You can break down any part of a 100min game in footy into 3 basic aspects being in possession, out of possession and in dispute.

That equates to playing offense, playing defense or trying to win a stoppage.

You break those down even further into offense, transition defense, defense, transition offense but we'll keep it nice and simple today.

As the title suggests we'll look at defense today and these are just my idea's, yours may be completely different but it will give you a framework on how to develop team-based tactics for any part of the game.

For defense I'd start with the 3 D's...

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ACTIVITY #12/35 FROM COLLINGWOOD 2023 PRE-SEASON TRAINING ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY #12 - FORWARD HANDBALL RECEIVE

The green player is a coach/player who mans the mark each time there is a mark in the middle and the marker/man on the mark both stay in the middle.

Start with the middle player kicking to the corner then they switch to the opposite corner who will in turn kick back into the middle.

 

The player who first received the kick from the middle passes through the middle of the grid (40 - 50 x 20m or so) to receive a forward of the man on the mark handball and kicks to their diagonal corner station and repeat.

The 2 stations who receive the kick from the middle are the ones who pass through the middle for the handball receive.

For all 35 training activities taken directly from Collingwood's 2023 Pre-Season campaign, purchase from https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ and I'll email out a PDF version to you.

35 COLLINGWOOD 2023 PRE-SEASON TRAINING ACTIVITIES (NEW PRODUCT)

                                         

I found a Collingwood superfan on Twitter (give her a follow, she's a ripper) who goes to many, if not all of their training sessions and drops comments on who's training, those who aren't and those doing rehab while also commenting on the better performers of that day.

She also takes a heap of footage of training and from watching all her video posts from the first pre-season session back in November up until now (i.e. bloody lots of them!), I've been able to compile 35 different training activities from Collingwood's 2023 pre-season, all for your coaching pleasure.

There are various themes throughout the training activities, not necessarily exact game plan type of stuff, but the use of forward handballs and pressing from the front defense was a highlight of their play last season, and I expect to be right at the forefront of what they do again this season. 

This is a stand alone product which anyone can purchase as a 1 time purchase and there is no membership needed to do so.

I'll also be updating this as any new Collingwood training activities come to light.

You can purchase your copy from this link - https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/.

COACHES CALL - KICK OUT

Let's try something new today.

Below I've laid out a kick out scenario from an AFLW game from 2023.

All I'm going to do is give you some information on the scenario and then I want you to devise a strategy/tactics to achieve the desired outcome.

• Red team has 5 players 
• Green team has 4 players
• Green has 1 player who has to be in the end zone area (50m line to end line) at all times but allow 2 - 3secs for a teammate to replace them if they decide to come out and defend.
• The red team is trying to get the ball to a teammate for a mark in either of the black shaded boxes.
• If the defense can win the ball then they try to score 
• The red team can score 1 point for every kick/mark they can make + 2pts for getting the ball in either goal square while green team score the usual 6pts for a goal through the big sticks.
• Once either team scores then the ball starts back at the kick out
• 1 game = 2 halves of 5 - 6mins and then the total score wins the game

Now it's your call - how would you go about making this happen?

CONE DRILLS TIME OF DEATH: TODAY!

                                                     

I've posted about my loathing levels of cone drills plenty of times previously, yet continue to be a staple of local football at all levels and ages even with the mammoth amount of evidence that for skill development and game intelligence, they are simply awful.

4 days ago a study was released on Twitter titled "Exploring the Effects of of Task with Different Decision-Making Levels on Ball Control, Passing Performance and External Load in Youth Football" and it SHOULD signal the death of cone-to-cone passing drills, at least I can hope it does anyway. 

The study used Soccer but it all holds true for pretty much any team-ball-invasion sport.

PRE-TESTING

Players were put through a 4v4 small sided game on a 40 x 30m pitch x 6mins and were graded on control behavior (execution, kicking the ball into motor space,body orientation, appropriateness) + passing behavior (decision, execution, offensive position, free from opposition, rhythum and tempo), receiving a 1 or 0 point rating if successful or unsuccessful during the 6min game.

INTERVENTION

After 2 minutes of rest, players were split into 3 groups for activities involving low, moderate and hard decision making.

The low decision making group performed...

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4 (+4) v 4 POSSESSION RONDO

                                                     

This training activity focuses heavily on maintaining possession by utilising wide and/or central options.

Start by creating 3 teams of 4 in different colors and make sure they know the focus of the activity.

The scoring system is what will drive the behaviors in this activity of which I mention in the training video and I'll also lay it out below but feel free to fiddle with the scoring as you please depending on what your learning outcomes are...

For full access to this training activity and heaps of others, register for a level 3 membership at https://aussierulestraining.com/membership-account/membership-levels/. 

STARTING OUT WITH A CONSTRAINTS-LED APPROACH

                                                      

These points were made by various coaches to a Twitter thread by Philip O'Callaghan, a tennis coach who posts a lot about coaching with a constraints-led approach (CLA), a method I've also posted plenty on.

Take your best 6 - 8 points from here and start your own journey with CLA and watch player engagement, learning and thus performance take a huge leap in 2023.

1. Patience is the key, embrace the chaos, don’t stop them right on the cusp of learning, allow messiness
2. Be willing to explore practice design giving yourself some grace/patience and keep learning/exploring
3. Embrace mistakes
4. Start with an activity you already use, think about the mistakes usually made during it and try to think of some constraints that can help you address them instead of explicit feedback
5. Work with the end in mind and what behaviors you’d like to emerge from the task/learning environment and are they similar to those in games
6. What is the issue that you’re team is doing wrong, what are some of the underlying issues/rate limiters that may be the cause, understand how to use constraints to afford – create a learning environment for the players, revisit the big picture – has it improved and be patient
7. Think of constraints as situations, not limitations breaking down elements to a single focus and reward more points for the constraint you’ve added, less points any other way and don’t lose realism
8. Link constraints to behaviors/habits you want to create/develop in attack/defense for each age group you coach (intentional/deliberate practice)
9. Know various types of constraints (technical, tactical, team rules, in/out of possession etc), know when to use them, know how to use them (setting problem solving tasks for players to sort out themselves)
10. Read the play for the coachable moments, focus your aim with effective question’s to check for understanding
11. 1^st consideration x will this constraint restrict their options or promote exploration/steer towards a new solution (aim for new solution/s)
12. Why do you want to try an approach and if CLA is what you think will work best then try it, make mistakes and learn from them and get a peer to help you review
13. 1^st understand rules and create principles for the game while working with layers of principles/intentions as intentions drive solutions
14. Be patient, trust the process and constantly ask yourself what the purpose of the activity is and how can you change/adapt it to make the outcome/s stronger
15. Don’t be blinded by your own coaching biases by forcing a CLA to create outcomes that only you want to see by allowing creativity to guide your design (constraining to constrain v constraining to afford)
16. Realise that session/task design is the only thing in your control as coach
17. Go slow, think about how you want your team to play and build the opposition so they provide problems for your focus team that helps draw out your style of play (constrain attack to work on defense and vice versa)
18. What are your constraints trying to achieve
19. The rules are the most important constraints and then how can they exploit the rules to their advantage which is the role of tactics
20. Don’t rush, give yourself time to do some research, be curious, pay attention and link up with people to support you while understanding your sport, your athletes and the constraints involved and staying open to what emerges
21. Constraint to afford which is to create a situation (constrain the action) where the player has the opportunity to investigate a new movement/skill opportunity (affordance)
22. Empower your athletes and change from coach to a designer/gardener
23. Ease the grip on what you think you know and attend to what is emerging
24. Take what you're doing now and add a defender/s, add a time component, change field size, have 4 games playing at once instead of 1, keep it simple to start with and let the players explore
25. Constraint to afford, do not over-constrain, do not force a singular solution to problems, focus attention on intentions and do not force it
26. Enjoy not being tied to a plan – prepared no planned
27. Explain to players/parents your moving to CLA, understand that you/they won’t see immediate results and realise you will make mistakes creating environments
28. Create a safe environment where mistakes are OK and failing can help improve performance/learning
29. Set a specific goal and create congruent scenarios
30. Simplicity is key
31. Dig deeper as it’s not just about playing small sided games with an incentive or 2
32. Write your plan in pencil
33. Reward points for things you value with a basketball example being pass x 1pt, post pass x 2pts, backdoor pass x 3pts, lay up x 10pts, catch and shoot x 10pts, steals x 3pts etc and once 1 team hits 100 total points, then the opposition gets 1 possession to score for the win
34. Guide them where to look but not what to see
35. Create affordances rather than overlimiting the range of possible solutions
36. Patience, CLA increases realist encounters in an activity but it also means less success before consistent solutions are discovered through a loop of constraints - high struggle - exploration - less struggle -  solution/s
37. Start with a game and simplify/modify to encourage exploration of a set of skills you want your players to improve but modifications don't have to be complex and might jut be extra points for specific actions/outcomes
38. Create an environment that heightens the athletes awareness of the "flaw" where the environment gives the player the feedback, not the coach, then peel back the constraint to test its impact on the player but be strategic with it   

GAME/TRAINING SCENARIOS - PRESSING FORWARDS TRIPLE LAYER

Scores from turn over is easily the largest scoring source in the AFL and I'd suspect holds true in local footy.

Forcing the opposition to turn the ball over as close to your goal is the most effective way to do this as the closer to your goal you can force a turnover, the better chance of scoring you have off the back of it, playing a forward half game and simply starving them of any easy footy and hopefully, even getting it to their own forward half.

Richmond put a huge emphasise on pressing forward to the ball carrier in their premiership years with the mantra of "If you're going to make a mistake, make a mistake coming forward" and I'm also here for it.

If you're the closest player to the ball carrier and you're running away from them then they are under no pressure in having to dispose of the footy plus they're also gaining territory with every step.

This is the perfect time to apply huge pressure coming forward towards them and taking away their space which will wreck havoc with their decision making as now they might have to handball instead of kick and it's that lag time in changing the decision and executing it that's your opening.

Here's a scenario you can try to carry this out using 3 or even 4 layers of frontal pressure...

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